Asia Massive rescue operations were scrambled along Asia's devastated coastlines as the death toll from a powerful earthquake and the giant tidal waves it unleashed neared 24,000 and hopes faded for many thousands more still missing. Asia A top UN humanitarian official said billions of dollars of damage had been caused by the Asian tsunami disaster and that it now required the biggest relief operation ever to help the victims. Ukraine Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko won Ukraine's presidency, ballot counts showed, but his pro-Russian opponent vowed to contest the results, threatening to drag the country's political crisis well into the new year. Ukraine Ukrainian Transport Minister Heorhiy Kirpa was found dead with a gunshot wound at his country home outside Kiev, his spokesman, Eduard Zanyuk, told AFP. Iraq Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden said any Iraqis taking part in January's elections would be "infidel", as the main party of the Sunni minority said it would boycott the landmark vote. Iraq Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most-wanted man, as leader of his terror network in Iraq and called for a boycott of landmark Iraqi elections, in an audiotape attributed to him and aired by Al-Jazeera TV. Mideast Israel released almost 160 Palestinian prisoners as an act of goodwill towards Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak but Palestinians dismissed the move as a public relations gimmick. EU Turkey said it favored reviving talks to reunite the long-divided island of Cyprus on the basis of a UN settlement plan by the time it starts membership negotiations with the European Union in October next year. Uzbekistan Uzbekistan's parliamentary polls were heavily criticised by Western election observers for shutting out the opposition, drawing a defiant response from President Islam Karimov's hardline leadership. Serbia The former policeman accused of murdering Serbian reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjic last year said his confession was extracted by police as he spoke in court for the first time in a year. Congo UN peacekeeping troops deployed in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) destroyed three camps of an armed militia in the northeastern Ituri region, a UN spokesman said in Kinshasa.